A widely recognized and urgent need for safer athletic helmets, such as football and hockey helmets, exists at the present time and has not been satisfied by state of the art developments. Very serious and sometimes life-threatening injuries continue to occur in games such as football due to shocks transmitted directly by the steel face guard to the rigid shell of the player's helmet. Brain concussion and spinal column injuries can result. Similar problems exist with hockey helmets, motorcycle helmets and the like.
Furthermore, when the connections between the face guard and helmet shell are rigid, or nearly rigid, stresses on the face guard are transferred directly to the helmet shell and can deform it, sometimes permanently, and can also crack the helmet shell which again can result in an injury to the athlete wearing the helmet.
It is also possible with state of the art helmets for the steel face guard to separate under impact from the helmet shell to which it is anchored by relatively rigid or unyielding means, and such separation creates an obviously dangerous situation.
To a very limited extent, some structures have been devised in the prior art attempting to deal with the above deficiencies and problems, but as yet nothing even approaching an adequate solution has been offered.
For example, in prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,263,236 to Humphrey an improved connection or mounting for the face guard of a football helmet is disclosed which lessens to some degree the stress transmitted by the guard to the helmet shell and the shock transmitted to the shell when the guard receives a heavy blow. In the structures disclosed in this patent, however, the shock absorbing ability of the face guard mounting is derived entirely from the resiliency of the material from which the guard attaching or anchoring element is formed, such as a solid elastomer. There is no provision in the patented structure for any substantial displacement of the face guard relative to the helmet shell when the guard receives an impact blow. Consequently, the face guard mounting is not very effective in isolating the helmet shell and the head of the wearer from severe shocks, as is accomplished quite effectively with the present invention, in accordance with its main objective.
Additional U.S. Patents to Humphrey, namely, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,139,624; 3,729,746 and 4,086,664, possess a similar lack of shock absorbing capability, even though they do show improved connecting means between the face guard and helmet shell which resist separation of the guard from the shell and render it possible to raise the guard upwardly and way from the face of the wearer in emergency situations.
In contrast to the devices in the above-noted patents and in any known prior art, the present invention provides a simplified, economical, safe and highly efficient shock absorbing connector or mount between the rigid face guard and the rigid shell of an athletic helmet which isolates the shell and therefore the head of the wearer from severe shocks resulting from impact blows delivered to the face guard. Without loss of anchoring ability, the mount of a face guard can yield under impact to allow substantial and sufficient relative movement between the face guard and helmet shell to effectively absorb the shock. The mount is constructed from components which exhibit a controlled plunger-like movement under shock forces which in turn permits controlled displacement of the face guard relative to the helmet shell followed by controlled return of the guard to its normal position after the shock forces have been dissipated and without permanently deforming or damaging the helmet shell. The components of the mount by their nature can be designed to vary the extent of face guard displacement in accordance with variations in forces against the face guard.
The shock absorbing face guard mount for helmets according to the invention possesses versatility in that it can be installed in various positions on the helmet shell to absorb shocks transmitted in different directions, such as generally horizontally or generally vertically relative to the head of the wearer of the helmet.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent during the course of the following detailed description.